As President, Donald Trump may have been tough on China – he imposed tariffs on Chinese goods and blamed Beijing for unleashing Coronavirus on the world. But that did not deter some Chinese from profiting from his image after he ceded the White House to Joe Biden.
Shops on Taobao, the largest e-commerce platform in China operated by the Alibaba Group, did brisk business in 2021 selling a statue of Trump, in an unlikely (for Trump) serene Zen monk pose. The caption said, “Make Your Company Great Again’’, a play on “Make America Great Again”, the slogan that won Trump the presidency in 2016, and implying that the statue will bring you good luck like Laughing Buddha images are supposed to do.
The statue was priced upward of 999 yuan (US$153), depending on size.
“Does it really work if I place it at home?” one potential buyer asked in a post on a Taobao shop.
Some shops described the statue as “Dong (know it all) Buddha of the West”. This was a dig at his claim to have expertise in many areas and being a ‘stable genius’.
Photo courtesy Taobao
1 comment
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